6 March 2003

1. "European rights court verdict on Kurdish leader Ocalan case due March 12", the European Court of Human Rights said Wednesday it would on March 12 pronounce judgement on claims by Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan that his human rights were being violated as he serves life imprisonment in a Turkish island jail.

2. "The Kurds in Northern Iraq Cling to Their 'Experiment'", independence Imperiled by Threat of War.

3. "Rights group rings alarm bells over Turkish plans for northern Iraq", the US-based rights group Human Rights Watch on Wednesday expressed concern over Turkey's plans to send troops to northern Iraq in case of war because of the country's poor record in its own bloody struggle against Kurdish rebels.

4. "US diplomatic strategy in Turkey based on outdated roadmap", the head of Turkey's ruling party announced plans yesterday to seek a second vote on US troops.

5. "Turkish army weighs in", the Turkish army has been forced to show its hand, coming out strongly on Wednesday in support of the government and its plan to allow US troops into Turkey for an Iraqi invasion. A statement by Army Chief of Staff Hilmi Ozkok made it plain that he would like to see parliament's recent rejection of the US deployment reversed.

6. "U.N. Asks Greece, Turkey, Britain to Help on Cyprus", the United Nations has asked Greece, Turkey and Britain to send senior officials to The Hague next week to increase pressure on the leaders of divided Cyprus to quickly put his reunification plan to a vote, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

1. - AFP - "European rights court verdict on Kurdish leader Ocalan case due March 12":

STRASBOURG / 5 March 2003

The European Court of Human Rights said Wednesday it would on March 12 pronounce judgement on claims by Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan that his human rights were being violated as he serves life imprisonment in a Turkish island jail.

Lawyers for Ocalan, who was captured in Kenya by Turkish authorities in 1999, say Turkey has violated articles of the European human rights convention that guarantee the right to a fair trial, freedom of conscience and expression, and prohibit ill-treatment of prisoners.

Ocalan, who was sentenced to death for treason in June 1999, is the sole inmate of a jail on the Marmara Sea island of Imrali south of Istanbul. His sentence was commuted to life in prison last year when Turkey abolished capital punishment as part of reforms designed to boost its bid to join the European Union.

His separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) declared an end to its 15-year war for self-rule in southeast Turkey in 1999 in favour of a democratic resolution to Kurdish grievances. The conflict, which has claimed about 36,500 lives, has since then significantly abated.

2. - The Washington Post - "The Kurds in Northern Iraq Cling to Their 'Experiment'":

Independence Imperiled by Threat of War

SULAYMANIYAH / 5 March 2003 / by Karl Vick and Daniel Williams

Qadir Mala Khadhir is standing in the doorway of his stall in the central market, in front of wardrobes, end tables and bedsprings no one is buying. His business is off, war looms, his car is gone and his family is packed into one jumbled room. But on balance, he said, life is getting better all the time.

"Of course it's better," said the used-furniture salesman, recalling a time before the Kurds of northern Iraq enjoyed relative autonomy, as they do today. "Even if there was no water to drink, the situation would be better than before 1991."

In the dozen years since one-sixth of the Iraqi population began a new life in the northern mountains, they have built a quasi-state within a state, protected by U.S. and British fighter patrols. Now, with war again on the horizon, Kurds are pondering whether their independence will last.

The Kurdish zone is not sovereign, nor is it ruled by any of the surrounding states that have frustrated Kurdish ambitions for centuries. It extends from the mountains on Iraq's northern border to an armed front line where the government of President Saddam Hussein assumes control. Three and a half million ethnic Kurds here revel in what their leaders call a scale model of the Middle Eastern democracy that President Bush says he wants to see rise in post-Hussein Iraq.

"The Kurdish experiment," as it has come to be known here, boasts an elected parliament, a free if careful press and a feeling of independence that eases the hardship and virtual isolation. "I don't want to lose this," said Khadhir.

The Kurds have been protected in their northern enclave since their failed revolt against Hussein in 1991, when Iraqi helicopter gunships forced tens of thousands of Kurds to flee toward Turkey. The creation of a "no-fly" zone in the north allowed the Kurds to return to a haven that has flourished in the past decade.

Kurds applaud any military campaign to unseat Hussein, whose forces gassed, shot and bulldozed about 100,000 Kurds 15 years ago, according to estimates by human rights groups. "He's the murderer of Kurds," said Azad Mohammed, trimming a sheet of tin in his shop.

At the same time, however, Kurds fret aloud that a new war will put their fragile golden age in jeopardy. Their autonomy could be doomed either by the whims of a new Baghdad government or the meddling of Turkish forces who threaten to enter from across the border, even if U.S. forces do not. Kurdistan may be a less-than-official version of the real thing, like MaDonal, the premier fast-food palace on the bustling main street here. But it is more than the Kurds have ever had, and they find it immensely satisfying.

"We are in the beginning of a renaissance for the Kurdish people," said Sherko Abdullah, editor of the satirical monthly Sekhurma, which means nudge. "It's not a gift from anyone, this situation. And I personally believe the U.S.A. understands how we've been treated in the past."

In Irbil, an ancient city of more than a million on the edge of the vulnerable plain to the south, booksellers offer a map of the ultimate dream: "Kurdistan," a mythical country extending from the Mediterranean coast of Syria east to Iran, north into Turkey and south toward the middle of Iraq. But the reality of the Kurdish zone today is more limited -- 17,000 square miles, mostly in the Zagros Mountains, to which Kurdish guerrilla fighters retreated often over the last century while trying in vain for something grander.

Kurds may be a nation in almost every sense of the word; the estimated Kurdish population of 25 million spread around the region is united by language, culture and a stubborn history of fighting for self-determination. But the Kurds have never had a state. And the collective desire for one is a force that complicates the Bush administration's best-laid plans for war.

Turkey, fearing such a Kurdish state, may send tens of thousands of troops into northern Iraq. Turkey's population of 12 million Kurds is the world's largest, and separatists among them waged a 15-year insurgency against Turkey; 30,000 people were killed before it ended in 1999. A nascent Kurdish republic on Turkey's doorstep might revive the conflict, the Turks say.

Turkey's fear of Kurdish nationalism runs so deep it denies that Kurds exist -- in Turkey, they were long called "mountain Turks." Kurds, for their part, regard the Turks as an enemy the equal of Saddam Hussein, if not worse.

"When Saddam kills us, he kills us as Kurds. The Turks consider us dead already," said Barzan Ishmael, a Kurdish militiaman in the northern town of Dahuk, which is governed by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of two groups that administer the northern zone. Both groups warn that a Turkish incursion would incite a prolonged war in the mountains, just as the United States is trying to fight one elsewhere.

At the same time, Iraqi Kurds insist that they have learned their lesson. After losing every fight they have ever started, Kurdish leaders say they have deferred their aspirations to independence. They insist they will remain part of a new democratic Iraq built on a federal model that preserves vital elements of their autonomy.

"We have no option," said Barham Salih, prime minister of the part of the Kurdish zone governed by the other major group, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. "If you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em."

The city of Dahuk, 50 miles south of the Turkish border, is a modest showcase for Kurdish achievements. It boasts the largest supermarket in northern Iraq, the most modern hotel and streets that bustle so vibrantly that local leaders decided the city needed a break from the sepia tones that dominate Kurdish buildings. Storekeepers were ordered to paint their facades one of four colors, depending on their neighborhood: bright blue, purple, onion yellow or shocking pink.

The Kurds may have instituted parliamentary democracy in their region, but in this instance, democracy runs only one coat of paint deep. "I have purple nightmares," said Salah Abdul Salaam, who works in a music store in the pink Suzann district. "They didn't ask anybody. They just told us. This is not the democracy we want. I prefer blue like the sky."

Nichervan Ahmed, the appointed governor of Dahuk, shrugged off the complaints. "We are trying to add variety," he said. "If everyone voted, nothing would have gotten done."

That top-down attitude clouds the Kurdish experiment. After creation of the no-fly zone above the 36th parallel, the Kurds came back and promptly held parliamentary elections. The vote split 50-50 between the two parties that for decades had jousted for primacy in Kurdish liberation politics. They agreed to set up a joint parliament, but parallel administrations.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, governs the western and northern reaches of the Kurdish zone, including the mountainous areas where tribal traditions are strongest. Headed by Massoud Barzani, son of the most famous Kurdish resistance fighter, the KDP reflects those intensely hierarchical clan traditions.

To the east, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, governs the regions nearest the Iranian border from Sulaymaniyah.

Both the city and the party regard themselves as the more cosmopolitan alternative to the rural tribesmen across the way. But the PUK's politburo, chaired by Jalal Talabani, a lawyer, has the same firm grip on power as the Barzani clan.

When Abdullah was looking for backers for his satirical magazine, the richest people in the PUK zone demurred, fearing his Nudge might offend the powerful. But one investor loved the idea: Hero Talabani, the chairman's wife. "A satirical magazine supported by the wife of the big boss," said Abdullah. "It seems funny. But it's not."

Hero Talabani, who also supports a private TV channel that competes with the staid official PUK TV, said someone had to carry on a "tradition of freedom" that sustained the Kurds even when they were hiding in the mountains. "I had a nice life in Damascus, and before that in Baghdad," she said in an interview, referring to years in exile and her childhood. "I didn't leave that to be in a prison and just obey."

Five years after the 1991 ballot, instead of new elections there was war. The KDP and PUK turned their guns on each other over revenue from Iraqi oil smuggled through Kurdish territory to Turkey. The two sides have since made peace, and last month opened branch offices in each other's base cities, but the memory lingers.

"Those parties are losing the charm of liberation," said Shaho Saeed, a philosophy professor at Sulaymaniyah University. "The relationship between people and parties is seeing a certain amount of turbulence and anxiety."

The prospect of a new war has deflected the hardest questions for now, Saeed said, while underscoring the substantial gains, which are visible from his office window.

The university, which Hussein's government shuttered after student protests, was reopened by the Kurdish administration and anchors one end of Sulaymaniyah's showcase boulevard.

The street is lined with a new (and PUK-owned) high-rise hotel, crowded Internet cafes and CD shops, while satellite dishes, forbidden under Baghdad's rule, stipple the skyline.

Outside the cities, the harsh Kurdish countryside is broken by mud huts and curiously uniform hamlets marked by blue-and-white signs. The huts survived Hussein's late-1980s Anfal campaign of systematic destruction, designed to punish the Kurds for siding with Iran in the war with Iraq. The new neighborhoods were built by the United Nations, which reconstructed not only the Kurds' homes but also their economy.

Kurds refer offhandedly to "986" as if everyone knows the number of the 1995 U.N. resolution that, with a subsequent agreement between the United Nations and Iraq, brought 13 percent of the proceeds from the sale of Iraqi oil to the autonomous zone. "Before 986, a bag of flour cost 1,150 Iraqi dinars," said baker Nabaz Hussein, standing by the comforting heat of the open hearth into which he flips ovals of flatbread all day. "Now it costs 50 dinars," or about $6.

Like other Iraqis, Kurds can eat free with U.N. rations of flour, oil and other staples. The wealthier, in fact, sell their rations for pocket money, or trade them for better brands. But other essentials are harder to come by.

The Kurdish region has its own oil well and refinery, but the gasoline it produces is so rough that most motorists buy from translucent jerrycans stacked beside the road. The fuel the color of lemonade comes from the Baghdad side, the preferred darker grade from Iran. But there are no guarantees, and garages do a brisk trade cleaning fuel filters.

Also scarce is vital economic information of any kind, though unemployment is universally acknowledged as high in all sectors. In Shaqlawa, a town 25 miles northeast of Irbil, the sweeping vistas were once a magnet for tourists from as far away as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Restaurant owner Adnan Mohammed Ahmed Garaz is optimistic that tourists will return once Hussein is gone, but the reality is that in the run-up to war, even the few tourists who traveled from Irbil have stopped visiting.

3. - AFP - "Rights group rings alarm bells over Turkish plans for northern Iraq":

ANKARA / 5 March 2003

The US-based rights group Human Rights Watch on Wednesday expressed concern over Turkey's plans to send troops to northern Iraq in case of war because of the country's poor record in its own bloody struggle against Kurdish rebels.

"If Turkish operations in northern Iraq bear any resemblance to those in southeastern Turkey, we can expect to see a human rights disaster," Elizabeth Andersen, the group's executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division, said in a statement received here.

Turkey wants to dispatch troops into the enclave, which has been outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War, in a bid to prevent local Kurds from declaring independence in the aftermath of a war.

Officially, Turkish troops are to be deployed to deal with a possible influx of war refugees heading for the Turkish border. Human Rights Watch called on Turkey not to use suspected or convicted rights offenders in any operation, and urged independent monitoring of a possible Turkish military intervention.

Turkey was involved in a heavy crackdown on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) which waged a 15-year armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey. More than 36,000 people, most of them PKK rebels, were killed in the conflict, which led to allegations of gross human rights violations on both sides.

"The best bet against a repeat performance would be to keep past abusers out of northern Iraq, and to make sure civilian monitors are on the ground to observe the military's conduct," Andersen said. The group also called for close scrutiny by four of Turkey's NATO allies -- the United States, Britain, France and Germany -- which have sold weapons to Ankara.

"Military assistance should not be a one-off decision to offload weaponry and then move on... It should entail monitoring and reporting to ensure that the arms are used responsibly, inaccordance with the laws of war," Andersen said.

4. - The Christian Sience Monitor - "US diplomatic strategy in Turkey based on outdated roadmap":

The head of Turkey's ruling party announced plans yesterday to seek a second vote on US troops

ANKARA / 5 March 2003 / by Ilene R. Prusher

It was a gentlemen's disagreement that turned into an arm wrestle.

According to conventional wisdom, there was no question whose arm would fold when Turkey went elbow-to-elbow with its superpower ally. But the conventional wisdom that has shaped ties between the US and Turkey since World War II may have proven to be an outdated playbook for reaching a deal to base tens of thousands of US troops here for a war against Iraq.

Turks say that trying to force their arm - and assuming that it would give way without much resistance - is a strategy that has backfired on the Bush administration. Among the developments that prickled politicians here most: Washington's deadline for an answer before a week-long Muslim holiday, the image of US ships hovering off the coast of Turkey, and American newspaper cartoons depicting Turkey as a slippery rug dealer.

"The [US] stance during the talks and American publications that hurt Turkey's feelings had a negative effect," Prime Minister Abdullah Gul told Secretary of State Colin Powell after Saturday's parliamentary vote failed to support US troop presence, according to the daily Milliyet.

Others here acknowledge that Turkey's new leadership and old military establishment had, in recent months, indicated that Turkish cooperation was inevitable and that parliament would rubber-stamp any decision by the country's higher-ups.

That may have been the case in a 20th-century Turkey, one in which power was centralized, geography meant Ankara was a bulwark against Soviet communism, and the nation's secular leadership could not fathom being ruled by an Islamic-inspired party. But this is 21st-century Turkey, where a ruling party with conservative Muslim roots worries about constituents who see a US-led war as an imperialist, oil-driven crusade at best and as a war on Islam at worst.

In the current diplomatic quake, several analysts say both sides are at fault. But it is Turkey whose geography still makes it a coveted staging ground for the Bush administration, which has muted its frustration with Ankara in the hopes that a second vote on basing troops here could be forthcoming.

The shock of this weekend's "no" vote here not only has the Pentagon's war plans in a holding pattern, it raises the possibility that the US may ultimately look for closer cooperation with key Kurdish factions in northern Iraq. These groups, however, have in recent weeks complained that Washington was preparing to give Turkey too much leeway to suppress Kurdish self-rule during the course of the war.

On Monday, the Pentagon ordered another 60,000 US troops to the Gulf Region, which would bring the number of US and British forces there to more than 230,000. But it's not clear whether the Bush administration could wait another two weeks, the amount of time Turkish officials estimate it would take for another motion to be brought to parliament.

Yesterday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party announced that the government would pursue another vote in parliament, but failed to specify when. In the interim, local by-elections on Sunday in the southeastern Turkish city of Siirt, would pave the way for Mr. Erdogan, who was banned from holding office until AK Party parliamentarians overturned laws that stood in his way, to become prime minister. Erdogan would probably need another week to install a new government and rally support for a second vote.

That could be two weeks too many. If the Bush administration decides to push ahead in its war strategy, Turkey would lose approximately $15 billion in grants and loans, plus Washington's vigorous backing in dealings with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

Monday, Turkey's stocks plunged more than 10 percent on the news of Parliament's rejection - recovering partially yesterday. Equally important, Turkey could stand to lose its role, hammered out in months of negotiations, in determining the military and political arrangements during and after a war in Iraq.

Observers are surprised that Turkey's military did not put more muscle behind Saturday's vote, given Washington's tilt toward Turkey's interests above Iraqi Kurdish ones. "The political and military deal was a really good one for the Turks, and they are throwing that all out the window," says Dr. Bulent Aliriza, the head of the Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Affairs in Washington.

Still he says, there should have been ongoing dialogue at a higher-level, instead of an assumption that the details could be worked out. Ammunition, tanks, and other heavy war machinery, waiting at the port of Iskenderun, should perhaps not have been sent to Turkey's shores as though Ankara's help were a done deal. "America could have asked, okay, what's your biggest problem with this?' Instead you had these confrontational negotiations on an almost daily basis. There could have been a different way of negotiating," he says.

"This is diplomacy 101 between two allies," adds Aliriza. " I would put both down to the malaise in the relationship. This is a relationship that has long needed redefinition and renewal of the marriage vows."

But the Bush administration is not keen to give up on Turkey for reasons that go well beyond military strategy. Turkey, if not on board, will sap US aims to show that a war against Saddam Hussein is a just war with international backing. Moreover, turning the boats around and re-routing them to the Persian Gulf would take a week to 10 days, military experts say - not much different than waiting to see if Turkey will come around.

In the meantime, the US could avoid thinking out loud about Plan B or suggesting that Turkey will be punished if it does not play along, says Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Riza Kocukoglu, a military analyst at Yeditepe University in Istanbul.

"The U.S. must give a guarantee not to create a Kurdish state in northern Iraq, and not keep talking about Plan B," a codeword for moving ahead with war plans without Turkey, he says. "This could create a better atmosphere."

5. - Radio Netherlands - "Turkish army weighs in":

5 March 2003

The Turkish army has been forced to show its hand, coming out strongly on Wednesday in support of the government and its plan to allow US troops into Turkey for an Iraqi invasion. A statement by Army Chief of Staff Hilmi Ozkok made it plain that he would like to see parliament's recent rejection of the US deployment reversed.

The Turkish army is a powerful voice in Turkish policy, and politicians ignore it at their peril. In the past, the army has stepped in several times to oust elected governments when those governments endangered what the military saw as the supreme national interest of the country, such as the strictly secular nature of the state.

EU pressure

Lately, because Turkey wants to join the European Union, the military has been forced to adopt a lower profile. One of the conditions of EU entry is that democratically elected leaders command the military and not vice versa. So the army grudgingly accepted the sweeping victory of the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the latest elections.

They still managed to block its leader Tayyip Erdogan from running, but this decision has been overturned. Mr Erdogan will now run in a by-election next Sunday, and is widely expected to become the new prime minister soon after.

But behind the scenes the military still plays a pivotal role, as it did in the negotiations between Turkey and the US over the plan to create a northern front against Iraq. Under the plan, approved by the government, some 60,000 American troops would attack Iraq from Turkish soil to create a second front.

In exchange, debt-ridden Turkey would get 6 billion dollars in US aid and some 24 billion dollars in cheap loans. No less important, Turkish troops would be allowed into Iraq to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdistan. Turkey fears its own 15-million-strong Kurdish minority will get the same idea if that happens, and it's a nightmare for the Turkish army.

Fall-guy tactics

But while the military strongly backed the US-Turkey deal, they were only too glad to stay in the background and let the government do the talking. A war with Iraq is almost unanimously opposed by the Turkish public and the military happy, it seems, to let the newly elected government bear the brunt of the criticism.

The government failed to obtain the required parliamentary majority by just a few votes. The result was hailed by many in Turkey as a watershed event, as proof that Turkey's democracy had come of age. Others were less happy, and the whole affair has left the government in disarray. Turkey will be deprived of much-needed funds: earlier this week the government had to submit an austerity budget, with tax increases and spending cuts that will do little to increase its popularity.

Costs without benefits

Furthermore, although the no-vote has upset US plans, Washington is still determined to topple Saddam. That means, as Turkey's Chief of Staff has now publicly pointed out, that the country will suffer all the economic and political costs of a war without any of the benefits, especially a say in the future of a post-Saddam Iraq. For all these reasons, strong pressures are building up on the government to table a second motion in parliament to reverse Saturday's decision.

Chief of Staff Ozkok has now come out to help AKP leader Mr Erdogan overcome the divisions in his parliamentary majority. It's no small irony that the Turkish military are coming to the rescue of a prime minister-in-waiting, whom they blocked only months ago because of his Islamic leanings. But then, it is not the first time that the war against Saddam Hussein has made for strange bedfellows.

6. - Reuters - "U.N. Asks Greece, Turkey, Britain to Help on Cyprus":

UNITED NATIONS / 5 March 2003

The United Nations has asked Greece, Turkey and Britain to send senior officials to The Hague next week to increase pressure on the leaders of divided Cyprus to quickly put his reunification plan to a vote, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has written to the prime ministers of the three countries asking that they send representatives to give him strong support when he meets newly elected Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in the Netherlands on Monday.

Annan wants the two leaders to quickly agree to submit his plan to separate votes in each community on March 30 so that a reunited Cyprus can enter the European Union in April.

But Denktash said on Wednesday that he was determined to reject the U.N. peace plan.

"I told Annan that we would say no to the referendum plan. He said, 'Even if you are going to say no, come anyway.' We are going to explain the reasons for saying no," Denktash said in Ankara. He was in the Turkish capital to confer with top officials ahead of the Monday meeting.

Chief U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said, "The secretary-general is looking to the guarantors to give strong support to his efforts so that The Hague meeting has a successful outcome and that the separate simultaneous referenda go ahead on 30 March."

Should the two sides fail to agree, Annan has warned that U.N. efforts to resolve the decades-long standoff could end.

The EU has said that without a timely deal, it will admit just the larger Greek Cypriot side.

Cyprus has been partitioned along ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkey invaded the eastern Mediterranean island to thwart a Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military junta then in Athens.

The conflict has been a source of friction in relations between NATO allies and neighbors Greece and Turkey and threatens to undermine Muslim Turkey's own bid to join the EU.

Only Turkey recognizes Denktash's breakaway statelet and keeps some 30,000 troops stationed in the north of the island.